iGaming Daily

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Good afternoon and welcome to the iGaming Daily on a very special AI Appreciation Day. And that's what we're to be talking about today. AI and what the next steps for AI development are and how these can impact the payment journey and the gaming space as well. This episode is brought to you by OptiMove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market. To get a free demo, go to www .optimove .com slash SBC.

We'll also leave all the links in the description below. I'm joined by the payment expert and inside a sport team or some of them anyway today for today's special episode to mark AI appreciation day. We have a lot of these days, right? But this one's an interesting one at a transformational time for AI. Kieran, joining us from payment expert. How are things? I'm good. I'm good. Just about recovered from the weekend, but doing good. Yeah. Thanks Joe.

Yeah, was a tough weekend for just about everyone in the office. Still a sombre mood after England fell short again. But Ted, yeah, didn't want to start the podcast with that note. How are you? Bring some light to the intro. Yeah, I'm pretty good. Thanks, Joe. We've obviously just seen some interesting news that Gareth Southgate stepped down. So maybe we could see if England could have its first AI manager. I know we've just...

sort of been joking about that. know, AI can play chess quite well it seems. Maybe it can have a go at football as well. Could potentially improve them, get a bit more of an exciting performance on the pitch. But no, fair play to the lads for getting to the final. I'll say that for them. Yeah, well, you know, I was a big Gareth Southgate advocate, but sometimes I guess maybe he did seem like an AI himself. So an AI manager might be the next evolutionary step that gets us over the line. Anything that can get us a major tournament, I guess.

It is AI appreciation day. Yeah, how are you boys marking it? What are you doing? Big celebration later? Big celebration, yeah. I'm going to have a good hour chat with Shaq GPT. Nice. Ask him how his day has been doing and ask him why when I asked for a prediction of the Euros and he told me that England had win. Why that's not going about. He's obviously got lot of answers. A lot of answering to do, especially when I put that bet on the other week.

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Yeah, think Jack GPT needs to have a good long hard look at himself after that doesn't he? Ted, you also going to be chasing Jack GPT for your money later or? Yeah, maybe I'll take a different route. Maybe I'll ask it what I should have for tea tonight or something like that. know, see if it can figure my tastes out. I guess we've kind of touched on it there to be more, a little bit more serious, but we've seen the slow integration of AI into our daily lives. How do you guys

AI in your regular lives, maybe not on the daily, but yeah, how do you guys use AI? Do you have any type of ways that it taps into your life? guess a bit of a dull one to start with, but I think one that, and this isn't just me, think everyone in our, a lot of people in our office and in our profession in general are probably using this, which is obviously these sort of transcription software sort of things where AI will record a conversation and come up to the best of its ability.

Obviously not always 100 % accurate and it some amusing errors every now and then, but comes up with more or less a pretty solid script of who's been saying what and you can identify different speakers and things like that. From a full spectrum of accents as well. Yeah, exactly. It struggles with some more than others, noticeably, but depending on what platform you use. But yeah, that's a noticeable one. But I think obviously AI is used for so many different...

services and products. Now I think often we interact with an AI -backed product without even realising it. And then you've got a... If you're person who uses social media, you've got the social media algorithms, are obviously very AI -driven, to personalise and deliver content to you based on what it thinks you want to see and what you enjoy viewing. 100%. There are probably worlds of content and sectors of content, different types of things that you see, different characters that you see.

Prior to AI algorithms, you never would have even known they existed. So yeah, definitely I think that's kind of a subconscious one you would say that how we interact and engage with social media. Kieran, any daily use of AI apart from... I wasn't asking for bad betting tips. I mean, I feel like Ted said, even asking it for things like recipes and stuff like

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don't get me wrong, could look it up and you could probably find like a really nice old woman who's wrote a good recipe, good family recipe down. But sometimes you just go to AI nowadays. Sort of not using it but interacting with it, I would say there's a lot of videos online for entertainment sort of purposes where people are using AI to create like deep fakes of celebrities and although we'll probably come on to that later on and how that could be troublesome for some sectors.

really innocent and entertainment sort of standpoint, it is quite fun to sit down and watch them. Yeah. Yeah. The first time I'll ever give my mum a shout out on this podcast, but she got a real kick out of the AI, the kind of mock up press conferences that were comedy sketches after each time England played in the Euros where they had, you know, Gareth Southgate saying the most outrageous things and she got a real kick out of them. She found them hilarious sending them to me every game.

Yeah, there is a market for that type of comedy, I guess. And some of the political satire ones as well are really funny. really are hilarious. But as you mentioned, there is a darker side to that with the deepfake technology, right? Yeah, definitely. I think Ted's going to come on to it later on in the payment sector. mean, I went to Money 2020 recently and I sat down with quite a few people from them sectors and a of people who deal with fraud.

And a lot of the subjects that kept coming up was how AI is not just being used for the good, but also for the bad. And there's going to be a lot of regulations and investments in the payment sector in the coming years to sort of fight against AI and how it's being used for fraud and KYC and gambling and stuff like that. yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. And I guess we're talking about the daily life.

daily lives, how AI is integrated. The other thing I would say that has become a real tool is the virtual live assistants. The AI live assistants are something that are almost in every sector, whether it's betting or finance now. Ted, I wanted to ask you as well, as we talk about the live assistants, are there any other use cases of AI that can really relate to the betting and gaming sector?

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Kieran's already touched on it quite well with mentioning some of the people he spoke to at Money2020 as well as some of the coverage him and Callum both got out there, which I think I'll just do a bit of a plug on their behalf for this one. I encourage any of our listeners to go onto the payment expert and check out some of that because they did get some really insightful content from the conference in Amsterdam. KYC and fraud prevention are probably two of the big ones. KYC, if we talk about

Betting companies obviously have to handle a lot of data and a lot of customer information. Some of the biggest companies, know, with multiple brands will have millions of customers across various countries. AI can infuse in the right way. I think we obviously used to analyze all this data and keep an eye on customers, monitor customers. So if you see suddenly that say someone who just usually puts on a tenner on the weekend on the football is suddenly that's doubled.

or whatever in a short space of time and they're suddenly playing late at night, they're betting on leagues they wouldn't usually bet on. AI might be able to pick up on that and say, this could be an indication of potential problem gambling. And then, you know, that can then be used to inform the, I guess the compliance teams, the responsible gambling teams who can then interact with our customer on a human level, which is when it actually has more of an impact. AI is obviously used for that. It can be used for the automation and the detection side of things.

Fraud prevention is obviously the other one detecting, I guess, like dodgy bet slips or maybe people are trying to do match betting, which obviously bookmakers aren't a big fan of. as well, the Kiran also kind of touched on it with the whole deepfake side of things that AI can be used to assess documentation and make sure that people are who they say they are when they're setting up a betting account. Obviously, really important one there is age verification.

you don't want to have people using a potentially illicit document for, let's say, like a 17 year old set up a Gambit account, which could then land an operator in serious regulatory trouble. So it has quite a few use cases for gaming that I think are already being applied and will probably continue to be applied even further. But the main driver of the technology, I think, is really in the fintech and obviously in the tech sector itself. So I think we're going to see the real innovations there and then they

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then be utilised more by operators. yeah. The use cases that you kind of talk about there, it's interesting that you need AI to be married with the human touch as well. It can't be solely focused on AI. You've got to bring in the human touch and the two kind of have to work well together, right? I think that's essential, yeah.

I know we've talked a bit about here about some of the like the chat box that you get, which obviously are quite good for dealing with simple tasks, simple customer service queries. But I think with something like a responsible gambling interaction, people for fun side of fun element, customers are probably going to appreciate it a lot more if an actual person speaks to them rather than a machine, especially about such a sensitive topic and quite a personal topic. So you're to have that element to

And I think humans are just going be able to, a person is going to be able to explain that in a much better way. They're to be able to explain what options the company has for this person without potentially annoying them or, you know, the interventions. think it's much better in that sense. But that being said, you know, what you said before about having that flood of data, having so much data, being able to use AI to kind of break it down and

can be a real crucial tool for that to kind of solve an age old dilemma when you do get so much data. And Kieran, I wanted to talk to you about the sports sector as well. I know you've written a little bit about how AI is impacting sports now it's changing sports. We saw some good examples of that at or bad examples depending on if that goal was so close to being offside in the final. yeah, we saw some good examples of that in the Euros, right? Yeah, I

I think from what I gathered, obviously you two might disagree, but I feel like the EU rules was a sort of a good example of how AI can be used in football, especially when referees past two seasons, is it? Or past three seasons, they've been getting a lot of negative comments around the decisions that they've been making with the AI sort of coming in and shaking it all up and all these new rules being added.

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So as you mentioned at the Euros the rest were assisted by AI. Sort of the big ones as you said, it's sort of these semi -automated offsides which work with I believe the ball, even the ball is now, has got technology in it. And the AI sort of can tell you if an offside is offside or not straight away. Now like you said it's married up with a person. So at the end of the day

the AI may come back to referee and say not offside straight away, but then it will be checked by an individual who's running the VAR on that match. So there is a person to then sort of officiate, like at the end of it, they're the one making the decision. The AI is just saying, here is the data. is kind of a proofing job on the AI, what the AI has done there, right? Yeah. I think we probably will see this technology in the Premier League soon as well, which I think a lot of fans will be happy for.

bringing it into the wider context of Just to stay on that second, one of the things I really noticed at the Euros and in the final as well when that call, was razor tight that call, but it took about 20 seconds if that. They didn't even mention it did they? yeah. that's been a real bugbear of domestic VAR to the Premier League, to the English Premier League, is with these calls, they're taking so long, like they're taking so long.

the use of VAR in offside, guess, can really remove that time constraint. But yeah, into the wider world of sport and into the wider world of football. Yeah, so looking at a wider context, obviously it's all about, I feel like there's a real sort of trend of data, isn't there, when we talk about AI? And how AI sort of comes into its own is when there's so much data that sort of people can't deal with it on their

And obviously sports is massive and a big part of sports is scouting and sort of talent scouting. So AI has been using that now. Callum, my fellow insider sports journalist, he actually ran a feature with a company called AI .io. He sports to the COO Richard Felton Thomas and he sort of explained how they're using AI to help clubs and leagues scout talent in football, which is actually being supported by FIFA.

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So in the interview he sort of explained how the first team to sort of run with this technology was Burnley. And they sort of expected a few people to try it out, but they actually ended up getting players from around 125 different countries actually participated in the trial. So yeah, so that's quite impressive. How that sort of worked I believe is they would let

people scan a QR code and they would then submit videos of them playing football, doing drills, stuff like that. And I can't go into it too far, but somehow from that, the AI would then analyze these drills and stuff like that. Really? Yeah. That would then be passed on to clubs. Obviously then there's a lot of human interaction with looking at the videos themselves and stuff like that. But it just sort of allowed scouting networks to

obviously go to 125 different countries without actually going to 125 different countries. So it sort of revolutionises how teams and clubs find new talent. That's really quite a lot to digest, right, Ted? Like how AI is looking at the touch, the... I don't directly quote me on how it's doing that, but from what, from Callan's interview,

It is revolutionising how these clubs like Burnley probably struggle to target talent when you've teams like Manchester United and Real Madrid. But there's a lot of kids out there from countries in Africa and South America who probably don't get to see the light of day. So this is really revolutionising how they find this talent. Yeah, I'm just looking at some of their sign -ins as well. They've signed players from the Belgian league, the second division in...

Germany, yeah, and the Turkish league, the Danish league as well. So, yeah, they really are the full spectrum and I guess they're using AI to tap into that. That's really interesting. It will be wild to see how it changes the world of sport. But yeah, to kind of round us off and to bring us back to gaming a little bit, Ted.

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Where do you believe the barriers are? We've seen those barriers have been easily broken down in the world of sport. But where have... What are the barriers that still remain to bring an AI further into gaming and to seeing it really maximise like it is in the world of sport? So far, I think what we've seen is a very good question by the way, Joe. I think it's quite an important one and it's something that has been...

We've seen it talks about a lot of some of SBC's own conferences and then Money 2020 with Calum and Kieran went to and Pay 360 that I went to earlier this year. It's often the topic that comes up and that's responsibility. It's like the response, how can AI be developed responsibly without it becoming a risk to consumers and businesses, I think is one that a lot of people are touching on. It's something that a lot of governments have been getting involved in. know that the...

previous UK government under the Conservatives, set up the UK's AI Safety Institute. Like Richie Soonak was a really big fan of investing in technology and all that. We've seen the US do the same. The Canadian government are now investing some money into it. I don't know if they've up their own institute, but they're investing money into the tech and responsibility is one of the areas they're looking at. The newly elected Labour government is going to, I think is looking to continue these sort of efforts as well. And they want to set up like, I think it's data regulation centres.

to sort of provide another layer to that. I believe that was the terminology. There's a real onus on them now to carry the baton, right? Yeah, to keep that forward. I think if we're going to relate to the UK politics, think politicians on all sides have recognised how big financial services and technology are as a UK industry. So they want to see that developing, but they also want to see AI develop responsibly. I think the role that gaming can have in this is maybe if operators

Let's say they demonstrate how they're using AI for responsible gaming interactions to identify problem gamblers. And also on the sports betting side, help protect sports integrity as well. We've seen a lot of activity lately in that sort of area of operators working with the IBIA and other global monitoring bodies to really protect the sort of sports integrity and fight back against match fixing.

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AI can obviously play a role in that by monitoring all these vast sums of bets and data that comes in to detect suspicious transactions and so on. So think if operators can show how AI is making a real positive impact in their industry, that can then reflect and add on to what other industries are trying to do, show its positive contribution. I feel like I rambled a bit on that. I hope you got my point.

Yeah, we know we'll run you through an AI tool later and we'll cut out all the... Now, all really interesting stuff, Ted. And it is interesting that the barriers that are there and how the gambling industry isn't quite there with you maximising AI yet. But we're getting there. It's a high risk industry. the challenges are way worse. You know, football really taking it to the next level with the VAR tool.

Is that being used next season, the VAR, at all? I feel like it. Maybe you can back me up on this, Ted, but I do feel like there'll obviously be a general meeting, I think, in August. We'll probably find out more. But I do believe that there was talks about that being used. And I think after the Euros, I don't see a reason why they wouldn't implement it. They had a vote on whether to keep VAR recently, didn't they?

they all voted in favour of doing it except for one club, wasn't it? Yeah. One of the things he said was they want to commit to improving it and by committing to improving it, think logically we've got to assume that they're going to be looking at how can we use AI to make it more efficient and things like that. It certainly feels like an evolution in that relationship and something to look out for next season. We'll look out for that from the world of sports. We'll look out for the developments between fintech and AI and how these impact gaming and we'll also

specifically closely at the way that gaming can break down barriers and maximise the use of AI and also eradicate the bad actors that potentially come with AI as well. Thanks ever so much for your time. I really appreciate it and let's keep a vigilant eye over this one.